The Physics of Love

Chapter 38

'So, how does it feel to be the best student in our class?' Taylor asks with her mouth full of chips. She's waiting for Annie and me to clean up the lockers before we head out together to celebrate the last day of school. 'No offence, but I thought Hailey will keep her record intact. She was killing it until recently.'

'None taken,' I retort, not completely honest.

'She can thank her catastrophic love life for this academic success. Hailey's been occupied by more...exciting matters this term.' Annie sticks two fingers in the bag of chips Taylor's trying to keep away, teasing her.

'Catastrophic? Look who's talking! Noah is leaving the country because of you.'

'He's not leaving because of me. He just wants his family to be closer to the college he picked.'

'Right. The one he's about to attend two years from now.'

'I'm going away too. It's not like I got out of it unhurt. Give me that bag, you mean woman!' Taylor holds the bag above Annie's head, shifting it from side to side.

'Yeah, to England, like every year.'

'You're not exactly thankful I'm taking you with me.'

'I wanna go too,' Taylor squeals with Annie's arm around her neck. Annie snatches the chips from her and stands at a few feet distance to wipe out its contents.

'First you have to sleep with the best friend of a boyfriend who left you because you didn't wanna sleep with him.'

'I didn't sleep with anybody!'

'Say that a little louder and nobody will take any interest in you any time soon.'

'I hope so.' I also hope nobody else in the hallway heard this conversation. I scan the space around us; no jocks, no cheerleaders, we're good.

'So, what are you gonna do in England?' Taylor asks.

'We're gonna eat fish and chips, get Bianca some curves, talk British...'

Annie crumples up the bag and pitches it straight into the garbage bin.

'Did you see that?'

'You can replace Noah on the team. Go Annie!' Taylor applauds with a whistle.

Her innocent comment brings me back the memories I've been trying to leave behind for months now. The physics study plan I just found among random notes in my locker doesn't help either. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just erase it all and move on? I'll be better when I leave town, I tell myself for the millionth time.

'You're gonna miss all the summer parties,' Taylor whines.

'Pff...Miss what? Another beer pong tournament?'

Annie's thrusting the last few books into her backpack. It looks like it's about to burst; who knows what just came out of that locker. Annie's such a slob.

'Actually, the word is that Derek's parties are gonna get even bigger.'

'How's that?'

'I heard that Ted's brother is coming over for the summer and he's bringing the whole crowd from New York with him. I just hope there won't be too many girls.'

A thousand tiny blades probe underneath my ribcage. I try to shake off the feeling by concentrating on sorting things into a garbage and non-garbage pile that grow in front of me.

This is not jealousy, right? I'm just sad to be left out like that. I used to be his favorite person and now I'm getting information about his life from random hallway gossip. Since that...incident with my blackout, he only came over to apologize and after that we hardly said hi to each other and only when neither of us could avoid it. I don't wanna sugarcoat it; we're no friends, we're no enemies; we have no relationship at all.